The General Pinhole Camera: Effective And Efficient Nonuniform Sampling For Visualization

We introduce the general pinhole camera (GPC), defined by a center of projection (i.e., the pinhole), an image plane, and a set of sampling locations in the image plane. We demonstrate the advantages of the GPC in the contexts of remote visualization, focus-plus-context visualization, and extreme antialiasing, which benefit from the GPC sampling flexibility. For remote visualization, we describe a GPC that allows zooming-in at the client without the need for transferring additional data from the server. For focus-plus-context visualization, we describe a GPC with multiple regions of interest with sampling rate continuity to the surrounding areas. For extreme antialiasing, we describe a GPC variant that allows supersampling locally with a very high number of color samples per output pixel (e.g., 1,024{times}), supersampling levels that are out of reach for conventional approaches that supersample the entire image. The GPC supports many types of data, including surface geometry, volumetric, and image data, as well as many rendering modes, including highly view-dependent effects such as volume rendering. Finally, GPC visualization is efficient, GPC images are rendered and resampled with the help of graphics hardware at interactive rates.

Voicu S Popescu, Paul Rosen, Laura Arns, Xavier Tricoche, Chris Wyman, and Christoph M Hoffmann. The General Pinhole Camera: Effective And Efficient Nonuniform Sampling For Visualization. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG), 2010.

@article{popescu2010general,
  title = {The General Pinhole Camera: Effective and Efficient Nonuniform Sampling for
    Visualization},
  author = {Popescu, Voicu S and Rosen, Paul and Arns, Laura and Tricoche, Xavier and
    Wyman, Chris and Hoffmann, Christoph M},
  journal = {IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG)},
  volume = {16},
  pages = {777--790},
  year = {2010},
  keywords = {Nonuniform sampled images, interactive visualization, remote visualization,
focus-plus-context, antialiasing},
  abstract = {We introduce the general pinhole camera (GPC), defined by a center of
    projection (i.e., the pinhole), an image plane, and a set of sampling locations in the
    image plane. We demonstrate the advantages of the GPC in the contexts of remote
    visualization, focus-plus-context visualization, and extreme antialiasing, which benefit
    from the GPC sampling flexibility. For remote visualization, we describe a GPC that
    allows zooming-in at the client without the need for transferring additional data from
    the server. For focus-plus-context visualization, we describe a GPC with multiple
    regions of interest with sampling rate continuity to the surrounding areas. For extreme
    antialiasing, we describe a GPC variant that allows supersampling locally with a very
    high number of color samples per output pixel (e.g., 1,024{times}), supersampling
    levels that are out of reach for conventional approaches that supersample the entire
    image. The GPC supports many types of data, including surface geometry, volumetric, and
    image data, as well as many rendering modes, including highly view-dependent effects
    such as volume rendering. Finally, GPC visualization is efficient, GPC images are
    rendered and resampled with the help of graphics hardware at interactive rates.}
}